


Four times Levi and Hanji shared a bed

by gaiarcane



Series: the mundanity of domesticity [6]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Character's Name Spelled as Hanji, Gender-Neutral Hange Zoë, Nonbinary Hange Zoë, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:35:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25598923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaiarcane/pseuds/gaiarcane
Summary: pete wentz once said something about how sleeping next to someone is much harder than sleeping with someone but for the life of me i cannot find the book where he says that.basically what the title says!
Relationships: Levi & Hange Zoë, Levi/Hange Zoë
Series: the mundanity of domesticity [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1420489
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43





	Four times Levi and Hanji shared a bed

**Author's Note:**

> wow i don't even know why i'm doing this i guess i just want to write something similar to the four times levi called hanji by their name (i'm still proud of it though it was very fun to write you should go read it it's nice) so hey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> basically : and there was only one tree branch !

Levi was no stranger to sleeping next to other people. When he lived in the Underground City, sleeping next to other kids was a way to keep warm during the cold days, and despite the physical proximity that the captain found disgusting, even at the time, he preferred this to freezing to death. 

When he became a part of the Survey Corps, he didn't have to do it again. Levi was very thankful : he disliked every part of it, from the other person's scent, sweat, bodily warmth to the annoying extra limbs that sometimes punched him, elbowed him in the face or ran up his skin, he preferred for a titan to eat him whole than to endure this ever again.

Levi should have known. Should have guessed, even, when Erwin told him he had to go on a fairly simple mission, a year or so after he joined the Survey Corps. No mission was ever simple, even for humanity's best. Something would obviously go wrong, and it did. 

They were barely done with it and everything was already so chaotic. Four other soldiers had been tasked to be on this mission with him. Levi hardly remembered their names, but there were two girls, one guy he had seen before and of course, there was Hanji. 

Hanji was always everywhere near him, despite claiming that it was because of "some orders from above". Hanji was the soldier with the longest experience out of everyone participating in this mission which, in theory, was fairly simple : they had received a letter from the daughter of a cartographer from the capital who had just died, and who assured that before Wall Maria fell a year before, he had hidden a very valuable treasure in the basement of his house situated thirty miles away from the wall. Why the old man had not told anyone this before, nobody knew. What mattered was to retrieve what was in that basement.

Besides, Levi had guessed that Erwin wanted to check whether Levi could work well in a team. The newly appointed commander of the Survey Corps had always had high hopes for Levi, and this mission was perfect for the occasion, given its simplicity.

He had not been wrong. But he had not been right either. 

Surely, on their way there, Levi had cooperated with the others when they had to wipe out a few titans, and had even let the two girls kill their own. The cheer they made when they sliced the giant's neck reminded him of a familiar sound that Isabel would make when she was really proud about herself, and Levi smiled. It was already the end of the day when they had left, and now it was fully night. The group had split when they had seen the house. Levi had decided to check out the small cabin he had spotted in the woods when they had arrived, and Hanji, judging that Levi was fairly capable of defending himself should anything happen, had agreed. 

Levi trotted to the small cabin, and kicked the door open. The rusty lock fell from the wooden floor as he entered, and the soldier groaned as he saw the dust in the cabin, illuminated by the sunlight. With a hand on his nose, he kicked the boxes in the cabin, and found around thirty shotgun cartridges inside. When he turned around to search for more supplies, he finally noticed the two shotguns behind the door. 

"I just hope the old man didn't bring us here simply for this." Levi thought. "This is next to nothing." 

Seeing that there wasn't anything else inside the cabin, Levi walked out of the tiny house and proceeded to head back to where the others were, and hoped that they had found more than he had.

However, when he stood at the entrance of the small domain, he noticed that the house that was there when he left barely existed anymore. The entire place had been crushed, its walls had tumbled, and Levi guessed that it must have happened quite recently, because there was a great amount of dust everywhere.

He had left for less than ten minutes, _for fuck's sake._

Carefully walking to the area he had last seen his group, Levi grunted at the source of the destruction of the house, which was currently stuck on its back. The blonde haired titan was wiggling its tiny arms in the air, and Levi spotted a bloody mess of limbs in his gigantic hand (he guessed it was one of the girls, the one with curly brown hair). When it spotted him, the titan somehow rose up, stood on its legs and faced the soldier, who sighed. 

"Fucking hell." Levi muttered. 

Then, at the speed of light, he anchored his hook in the nearest tree and spun in the air, slashing the beast's neck in one move. What he could do in a few seconds cost other people their lives. Truly, what a great difference existed between him and other people. 

When he was done, Levi went back to exploring what was left of the house, and only then did he notice the other titan hidden behind the large tree at the entrance of the domain, that they had somehow missed when they had arrived. An abnormal, most likely. It was looking at him intensely, and Levi thanked his fast reflexes, because if he had been any slower he would have been swallowed whole. 

The giant lunged at him all of a sudden, and the soldier barely had time to roll away from the spot he had been standing. He took his blades out, and was about to kill this one too when someone did it before him. 

The figure appeared out of nowhere, drew their blade in the titan's neck and stood on its head. 

"I'm really sorry, but you've killed my friends." Hanji said to the titan, and Levi thought he misheard, but then the soldier continued. "If you hadn't, I might have brought you back home and we would've had some fun." 

Hanji jumped off the titan, wiping their forehead with the back of their hand, and it was only then that Levi noticed that the other soldier had blood running down their forehead, a couple of bruises there and there on their exposed skin where their clothes had been torn off, broken goggles, and on top of that, they were limping. 

Levi did everything he could not to rush towards Hanji and grab them by the collar. He had done that already not that long ago, when Hanji had almost caused one of Levi's men to die because they were so infatuated with passionate about titans. Surely, the annoying four-eyes would begin to think that it was a habit of his. 

Thus, he simply stared at Hanji with the usual look he had (the one that screamed annoyance ; there was another one that screamed irritation) and walked up to them. The other soldier seemed delighted to see that there was someone there, _alive_. 

"Ah, Levi!" Hanji said with a fake enthusiastic tone, designed to hide their pain. He had known the shitty glasses for barely a year, but he was good at noticing things about people. "I'm glad to see you here. Did you see anyone else on your way to the cabin, perhaps?" 

Levi sighed, crossing his arms on his chest. "Cut the shit, Hanji. What the fuck happened?" 

"...Well, I think I told the girls to stand guard outside while Moblit and I were exploring the house, and I specifically told them to scream if anything happened, but…" Hanji began, and then stared at the mess of organs and blood in the dead titan's hand. "I guess they thought they could get rid of this one on their own. The next thing I know, the walls around me are collapsing, and I can't see a damn thing." 

A chuckle escaped from Levi's mouth. He almost wanted to tell them that the reason they couldn't see a thing was because their glasses were broken. 

"Argh, this is a mess." Hanji went on. "Things were supposed to go smoothly, and now two soldiers are dead. What should we do?" 

"You're the captain." Levi reminded them. "Make the decisions. Should we head back?" 

Hanji hummed. "I don't think it's safe. Besides, I think I might have a broken rib or two. Or maybe more. I'm not sure I can withstand riding a horse at the moment." 

"What should we do, then?" Levi wondered. He had a faint idea, but wanted to hear what Hanji had planned, first. 

The other soldier, never short of an idea, replied almost instantly. "Well, I would suggest staying here for the night. The only issue is that other titans might appear, given that those two abnormals did. We might have to climb on one of the trees to avoid being attacked again." 

"The horses." Levi said, suddenly remembering them. "Are they still around?" 

Hanji 'uh'ed a few seconds, scratching the back of their head. Levi sighed once more. 

"A real fucking mess." Levi complained. "This happens to newbies, not to us!" 

"Well, to be honest, I think the world is too uncertain to be used to anything, really. But the fact that it is us and not anyone else reduces the number of casualties to only two." 

Levi raised an eyebrow. "Why two?" 

"Oh, that's right." Hanji said. "Moblit might still be trapped inside the house like I was." 

"Do you honestly believe he could have survived?" Levi wondered. 

Hanji somehow took this as a challenge. "Let's find out!" 

They jogged to what was left of the front door, and Levi sighed as he joined them in their exploration of the ruins. He guessed that Hanji would not believe that Moblit was dead until they saw his corpse, and since they had nothing else to do at the moment given the state of the house, he reluctantly participated in their search for the lost soldier. 

"Moblit? Are you in there?" Hanji yelled a couple of times, lifting a few rocks there and there, to no avail. When Levi helped them stand back up, Hanji explained further. "He told me he was going inside a room before everything collapsed. He might still be safe underneath all the rumble." 

"Or he might have been crushed to death." Levi immediately replied, to which Hanji pouted. "Which one do you think is more plausible, Four Eyes?" 

Hanji did not answer. Instead, they glared at the moon above them, and sighed. 

"We'll have to spend the night on a tree, I'm afraid." Hanji stated. "Let's find a branch high enough for us not to get eaten while we sleep." 

Levi scoffed. "You actually intend to sleep?"

Hanji shrugged their shoulders. "I might as well try to rest before we have to go back tomorrow." 

"Are you sure we shouldn't check whether the horses are still here?" Levi asked, arms crossed against his chest as he assessed Hanji's injuries with a glance. "We can't go back without horses, you know."

The other soldier stared at Levi as if he had said the most clever thing in the world. That's when he knew that something was wrong, because it was perfectly logical to look for horses. Hanji simply replied, "Ah, yes. I forgot about that." 

"Are you sure you don't have a concussion or something?" 

"It's not because I have a headache and I feel a bit dizzy that I have a concussion, okay?" Hanji retorted, then under Levi's judgemental gaze, they slowly noticed that their symptoms were a bit worse than they had just claimed. "Okay, maybe a mild one." They corrected themselves. "It's no big deal."

Levi rolled his eyes before replying, "Sure, Four Eyes." 

"You know what, I'll let you go search for the horses." Hanji finally said while crossing their arms. "I'll just stay here for a while and look at the beautiful night sky."

The other soldier tsked. "The last time I let you alone, your-"

"I messed up, okay?" Hanji interrupted him. "You don't need to rub it in my face, I know it's my fault."

Levi raised an eyebrow. While what he actually meant was that he didn't want to let them alone and wounded because he was actually worried for them, what came out was slightly different. It happened often when he tried to speak. For a while, he mulled over what he could say, how he could phrase everything better and finally came up with "You're not responsible for your subordinates' insubordination." 

Hanji chuckled. "Yeah, I am. It means I wasn't good enough of a leader."

"Don't say that." Levi retorted. "You might become a squad leader, one day. You have all the assets to be one."

Hanji felt like their concussion was impacting their sense of hearing, because there was no way on earth that Levi, the grumpy Levi that they had grown to learn over the past year, had actually said something like that. It sounded like a compliment! Hanji would have gladly accepted it in other circumstances, but not this time. 

"As if." Hanji replied sadly. "There's no way on earth I'd ever be in charge of other people."

Levi sighed before he answered. "Well, Erwin trusted you with this mission, didn't he?" 

"And look where this trust has gone." Hanji reminded him. "To waste."

"Are you even listening to me?" 

Hanji did not answer. Levi tsked, and left to search for the horses. He found two of them at the entrance of the area, unscathered and visibly not bothered by the ruckus that the house made when it was crushed down by a titan. Levi made sure they were okay, saw that the cart that had disappeared with the horses (they had been truly unlucky so far ; Levi expected something like this to happen) and returned to where Hanji was. 

They had managed to climb on the only tree branch thick enough to allow them to sit on. Levi tsked as he launched his hook and flew towards Hanji. 

"So are they still here?" they asked when they saw him. 

Levi nodded. "There are two left." 

"All is not lost!" 

The other soldier sighed as he sat down next to Hanji. He watched them as they began undoing their 3D maneuver gear, took one of the boxes that carried their blades and set it aside. Once most of their equipment was off, Hanji took off their cloak and their shirt, lifted their tank top a bit and brought the box to their side. 

Levi tilted his head. "What are you doing?" 

"I need to put something cold on my ribs." Hanji replied. "Metal is the only cold thing around, since we don't have the luxury of ice." 

_"They're not wrong."_ Levi thought, but didn't say anything. Instead, he asked "How's your rib?"

"Broken, I guess." Hanji replied, which left Levi feeling completely helpless. Unaware of the feeling that invaded their colleague, they yawned and then asked "Do you mind keeping an eye on our surroundings? I'm trying real hard not to doze off but I'm super sleepy. Wake me up in an hour and we'll switch." 

Levi nodded immediately : he did not feel sleepy and could easily keep watch over the two of them. Besides, Hanji definitely needed rest. They lied on the branch and closed their eyes and if Levi had not grabbed their ankle all of a sudden, Hanji would have slipped into Orpheus' arms right there, right now. 

"What's wrong?"

"What if you move and fall?" 

Levi looked utterly serious. Hanji chuckled as they replied "I won't. Don't worry."

The other soldier had every reason to worry : Hanji moved a lot in their sleep, and Levi was very well aware of it. He had barged inside their room a couple of times with the intention to wake them up because they were (once again) late to a meeting, only to find them sleeping in odd positions and sometimes, they were even sleeping on the floor after they had fallen off their bed. 

_"I thought I would never have to do this again."_ Levi thought, but stood up anyway. If he came back alone from this first mission where he was supposed to work with others, what would Erwin think? 

For Erwin, Levi's mission was to improve his teamwork, not to find whatever the cartographer had left in his basement. Levi was well aware of that.

So, Levi begrudgingly walked over to where Hanji's head was and sat next to them. Hanji didn't even open their eyes as he lifted their head in the least graceful way and moved until their head was on his thighs. That way, if the other soldier was to move, he could at least grab them before they fell. Pleased by the new pillow that they had just been granted, Hanji turned on their right side and faced the collapsed house.

They had not lied about feeling sleepy : a couple minutes after this they were completely out, and Levi was finally able to think in peace and quiet.

This did not last long. An impromptu fatigue settled itself in Levi's bones, pushing down his eyelids and slowly but surely made him drift to sleep. 

Surprisingly, Hanji woke up first. The first streak of down hit them right in the face as they opened their eyes to see that the collapsed house had not moved in the slightest. Not that they expected it to, but the night was dark and full of terrors that were over five meters tall and loved the taste of human flesh so much they could destroy houses for it. 

They turned around and expected Levi to stare back at them with his usual glare (the annoyed one, not the irritated one), but saw nothing of the sort. Levi was not even staring at them : his eyes were closed and the wrinkle between his brows was almost gone, giving his face a serene and tranquil expression that was so rarely seen on him. His head was dropping forward and Hanji thought that such a position could not possibly be comfortable, even though Levi was used to sleeping in odd positions and places (Hanji suddenly remembered that they had never seen him napping in a bed, only on the wooden chairs of the barracks).

They hated to disturb his peaceful sleep, but something had to be done about that awful posture.

Hanji slowly raised their hand towards him and poked the place where the wrinkle should be. 

It immediately reappeared and shortly after, Levi opened his eyes. 

For a second or so, they gazed into each other's eyes as if the world around them was not full of titans and uncertainties. Time seemed to stop as light brown faced dull grey, until Levi said, 

"The hell are you doing?" 

Hanji couldn't help but chuckle. They patted Levi's thigh before they sat up, stood up and stretched to ease their aching muscles. The soldier was not picky when it came to bedding, but they had to admit that they had slept in places much more comfortable than this tree branch. 

"I was trying to stop you from frowning." Hanji lied. "It doesn't seem to work." 

Levi frowned even harder, if that was possible. 

Hanji grabbed the parts of their 3D maneuver gear that they had taken off and put them back on, patted the box that had soothed their pain when they were sleeping and jumped off the tree branch that had been their room for the night. 

They heard the sound of another gear and suddenly saw Levi in front of them, already walking towards where the horses were right after he landed on the ground. Hanji was about to follow him when something (they usually called it the researcher's curiosity) prompted them to return to the house and search for the remnants of their colleague, which is exactly what they went to do without telling Levi about it. 

Not that they had to tell him : the two of them had scarcely been around each other (Levi avoided most people) but he was already aware that whenever Hanji had something in mind, they would not stop until that thing was done. 

He begrudgingly followed Hanji to what was left of the house and watched with his arms crossed on his chest as the other soldier circled around the debris, moved things whenever they could and finally, as they had done yesterday, yelled a couple of times to warn whoever might have been trapped under the house that there was still someone waiting for them up there.

"It's no use." Levi stated. "If there was truly someone under there, they would have been crushed to death." 

"Are you saying _three_ soldiers were killed by titans?" 

"It's not impossible." Levi replied. "In fact, it's very likely."

"But why haven't we found anything to prove that?"

Then, the most unexpected thing happened. 

A voice was heard from under the rubble, but no words could be understood. Yet the two of them were certain of it : they had not hallucinated it. After a couple of minutes of yelling back and forth, Hanji located the source of the sound and figured out that the other soldier must have been protected by the frame when it fell, which created an opening big enough for their colleague to hide. He was rather close to the surface, actually. 

Hanji sighed in relief.

All was not lost. 

"This huge piece of wall is trapping him." Hanji declared. "Help me remove it." 

"We can't see what it's like, under there." Levi replied. "Maybe it'll do more harm to remove it."

"I'm willing to take the risk." Hanji retorted. "Come on, help me!"

Levi let out a sigh. Not the first one and certainly not the last, but he still complied to Hanji's request. Somehow, his area of the house was mostly stable and removing the piece of wall did not cause more damage like Levi thought it would have. Out of the hole came out a young man with short light hair and a worried look but as far as Levi could remember (he had in fact seen this man a couple of times around Hanji), the man always had that look on his face. 

"I can't believe you're still here!" Moblit admitted. "After I woke up I yelled for an hour but nobody answered. I thought you had left." 

"And abandon a comrade? We'd never do that." Levi replied. 

The look Hanji gave him was enough to make Moblit understand that his survival had been quite a surprise for his two colleagues. They were quick to forget Levi's lack of belief and asked, "Did you get a glance at the old man's treasure?"

The young soldier immediately nodded and patted his pockets until he found a dusty folded piece of paper which, when unfolded, turned out to be a map. The old cartographer had apparently spent the last years of his life travelling to create this map of all the supply points within the walls before Wall Maria fell, meaning that most of those supply points had been left untouched since. 

"Moblit, right?" Hanji asked after they put the map in their pocket.

"Y-yes!" the so-called Moblit replied. "I'm surprised you remembered." 

Hanji laughed nervously. Perhaps they had a slight tendency to forget names from time to time, when they were too focused on something, but this was not a matter they wanted to discuss. They wrapped their arm around Moblit's shoulders in a friendly gesture and said "Moblit, you are the reason this mission is somehow not entirely a failure." 

Levi did not say anything. Perhaps he found that losing two comrades to get a map was a bit extreme but oh well, he wasn't the one making the rules of this world. 

Thus, he wordlessly followed Moblit and Hanji to where the horses were. They seemed to bond over research and Levi could very easily see the young man becoming Hanji's assistant, if he was willing to withstand their level of madness. 

Could Levi withstand their level of madness? Well, he had seen worse. He had his own level of madness, too. 

Levi could withstand a lot of things, in fact. On top of their madness, he could even withstand Hanji's steady cold hands wrapping around his middle as the movement of the horse made their ribs sting, forcing them to put their chin on his shoulder to get a sense of comfort and somehow ease their main and of course, to allow them to doze off without having to worry about falling off the horse. 

_why was Hanji riding behind Levi, you ask. well there was only one horse for them both, alas._

"You're quite a comfortable saddle." Hanji joked, seconds away from falling asleep.

Levi did not even retort anything smart or snarky. He could only chuckle lightly and hoped that the wind would drown the noise of his quiet laugh. (he had a reputation to maintain as the ever-frowning man!)

Levi thought he wouldn't have to share his personal space with anyone ever again, but he had to admit this wasn't too bad.


End file.
